ת"ש שיסה בו את הכלב שיסה בו נחש פטור מאי לאו פטור משסה וחייב בעל כלב לא אימא פטור אף משסה
Rabina even said: 'Where the witnesses know only the owner but could not identify the ox.'<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' In which case the sole intention of all the sets of witnesses was the declaration of Mu'ad. They could not have intended to make the defendant liable for half damages since half damages in the case of Tam is paid only out of the body of the goring ox which the witnesses in this case were unable to identify. This explanation holds good only regarding the intention of the last set of witnesses, whereas the former sets, if for the declaration of Mu'ad they would necessarily have to record their evidence before the third time of goring, could then not have foreseen that the same ox (whose identity was not established by them) would continue goring for three and four times. Rashi thus proves that the three days refer not to warning the owner but to the times of goring committed by the cattle.
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Shemirat HaLashon
(Ibid. 17): "For I heard them [the brothers] saying: 'Let us go to Dothan [nelchah dotainah],' which Rashi interprets: 'to seek against you nichlei datoth [legal devices (suggested by 'nelchah dothainah')] to kill you with." The explanation: It was decided by them that Joseph was a man of lashon hara, who provoked their father to hate them. And who knows how much contention he would stir up among them? They, therefore, sought some pretext to rid themselves of him in a way which would not make them "murderers" legally. As far as his being killed indirectly through them, this did not concern them. And as to their saying (Ibid. 60): "Let us go and kill him," this was meant in the same indirect sense. As stated in the well known Gemara, Makkoth 23a): "If one speaks lashon hara, he is fit to be cast to the dogs, it being written (Shemoth 23:1): 'You shall not bear a false report,' preceded by (Ibid. 22:39): 'To the dog shall you cast it.'" And we find in the Gemara (Bava Kamma 24b): "If one sicked a dog against someone, he is not guilty [of murder]." And even though by the law of Heaven, he is certainly liable for "indirection," too, they thought that in this instance they would not be liable by the law of Heaven because Joseph was a man of lashon hara and contention.
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